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A Texas Survival Kit

With its cranky critters, wild weather, prickly plants, and inhospitable insects, this state can be a perilous place.Chances are you'll have a close encounter of the dangerousor at least unpleasantkind one
of these days. So here's what to do if you're...

DIDPIONEERSCOMPLAIN, “Nothing exciting ever happens to me”? Probably not. For them, a mere trip to the creek for water meant keeping an eye out for rattlesnakes coiled in the weeds at their feet and panthers poised on a branch overhead. Although we modern Texans like to imagine ourselves worthy heirs to those hardy settlers of yore—fearless, tireless, innately wise about life—the truth is, most of us are hopeless city slickers. We screech at spiders under our own eaves; we think bad weather happens only on the Discovery Channel; and in the country we can get turned around faster than a toddler in a revolving door. Thanks to air conditioning and other modern conveniences, we’re so insulated from nature that we’ve forgotten to be wary of it. At the same time, more and more subdivisions are taking over previously pristine country and more and more Texans are opting to hike and camp in remote and rugged areas, where the old-timers typically come equipped with feathers, fur, or fangs.

Here are seventeen worst-case scenarios in which twenty-first-century Texans might unexpectedly find themselves—from being swarmed by killer bees to sharing the surf with a hungry shark—as well as basic emergency steps to take to save life and limb. And remember, as you boldly set out to explore the wilder areas of Texas with their resident skunks, snakes, and more: Hey, it’s their state too.

Bitten by Fire Ants

One-quarter-inch long or smaller, these surly little critters possess a degree of aggression that is belied by their size. What’s more, they don’t even belong here. Red fire ants (they’re actually half red, half black) are believed to have arrived uninvited in the U.S. in the thirties by way of South American ships docked in Mobile, Alabama, and they have been mobile ever since. By the fifties they had happily set up housekeeping in East Texas. Today fire ants cover at least two thirds of the state, and a February 2000 poll reported that 79 percent of Texans have felt their burning sting. Fire ants are truly dangerous only to the allergic or infirm; in 1995 a ninety-year-old woman in a Texas nursing home died six days after fire ants swarmed her in her bed. But for the rest of us, they’re still plenty painful, and the irony of an attack is that motion is what cues them to sting. If you jerk your foot or otherwise react violently (and who doesn’t?), the ants send instant messages to their nearby friends telling them to join in the fun.

If—when!—you awake from a post-picnic nap to find yourself covered in fire ants:

1. Brush or rinse them off, but do so as calmly and slowly as you can. Dab the bites with a weak bleach solution (Add 1 tablespoon bleach to a 1-cup measure, then fill it with water. Dab on affected areas) within the first ten to fifteen minutes. According to Dr. Patrick J. Crocker, the chief of emergency medicine at Austin’s Brackenridge Hospital, this will help prevent the formation of the white, fluid-filled pustules that will otherwise appear the next day.

2. Apply ice to the bites to numb the pain and reduce swelling.

3. Avoid scratching. The blisters are easily broken and infected and can leave permanent scars.

Swarmed by Killer Bees

The Swarm, a 1978 big-budget film set in Houston, introduced the concept of killer bees some fifteen years before the insects themselves actually winged their way into the state. The cast of thousands—valiantly fought by the likes of Michael Caine, Richard Widmark, and Henry Fonda—manages to off a slew of hapless humans before succumbing to military overkill. But parts of the movie’s premise came true: Africanized honeybees—that is, a hybrid of a high-honey-producing African strain and a domesticated breed developed in Brazil—did indeed move north to the U.S. in the early nineties. Today the bees have spread as far west as Las Vegas, but the largest concentration in the country is, for some reason, in Abilene; this summer, in nearby Big Spring, a man hired to remove a hive was fatally stung by hundreds of bees.

Killer bees have a serious anger-management problem. Each colony of hundreds, or even thousands, will attack en masse in response to a perceived provocation or threat, which may consist simply of your firing up your mower a hundred feet away. Because the bees usually relocate during the fall and